Has anyone had problems with their vision? I have never noticed this before I was diagnosed, but since my diagnosis in feb 2006 my eyes have been doing weird things. Today, I went to my children's conferences at the high school. I went into the bathroom and when I was washing my hands, I couldn't focus on the mirror in front of me. It felt weird. I walked toward the door and it was only then that I realized that what I thought was the mirror was an opening in the wall. The mirror was really by the door several feet away. I had the same experience earlier in the week with a mirror. I felt like I had no depth perception. Isn't this weird?

I went gluten-free in Sept. I've worn glasses for 22 years and for the first time ever my Rx improved in Jan. Since then I have heard that gluten can cause damage that leads to needing glasses. My Rx is about 1/2 what it was. I was amazed as was the doc!

In the past, and still on occassion, I have had opthamolic (sp?) migraines. I never got the headaches associated with "normal" migraines (until much later). Instead my vision was impaired.

This is about the time my symptoms related to celiacs first started rearing their ugly head, but I didn't suspect anything yet.

Sometimes my peripheral vision would just go on me-it would feel almost as if invisible blinders had just been put on me. Other times, portions of my frontal vision would go. Scary - especially as I was driving one day and realized I couldn't see all of the car in front of me.......threw my distance and depth perception all off.

My eye doctor said that they could often be brought on by "stimulants" like......chocolate, nicotine, some soft cheeses(!), and caffeine.

I was, at the time, a college student surviving on sweets, a smoker at the time, and addicted to Dr. Pepper (Still am addicted to that vice. ) and I could not trace the incidents to any of those things b/c I used them all the time.

I wonder now if it was celiac disease, and I just didn't know any better. I still have them every so often. I haven't sat down to track yet if it's connected to glutenings.

Of course, with two grandmother's with glaucoma and cataracts I am very acutely aware of changes in my vision. Ask you eye doc about opth. migraines. I'd be curious to see if that's what you're experiencing and if they're linked to celiac disease.

Good luck!

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Amy

Gluten Free since 4/05 - adult onset
Symptoms for 4+ years prior
Immediate family tests negative
No Known family members w/ celiac disease

I had something similar (migraines with no or little pain, just vision disturbances) starting when I was pregnant with my first child. It coincided with preeclampsia in my case (dangerously high blood pressure); it later returned a month after the birth (but without the high blood pressure)--my doctor said that at that point it was caused by hormone changes.

Are you on birth control pills? That might have something to do with it. You also might invest in an inexpensive blood pressure monitor and check out your own blood pressure, just so you can rule things out.

Can you tell if you are using both eyes together, or are you using one primarily and suppressing the vision in the other? You can check this by covering one eye, looking at an object, and then open the other eye and then cover the eye that was doing the looking. Then try this with the other eye. If everything is normal, you shouldn't feel the second eye move as it focuses. If it does, that means you are doing all your focussing with one eye (the other is either just getting peripheral vision or the brain is suppressing theimage so you don't get double vision.

Thanks for all of your advice. My blood pressure is usually pretty good. I am on estrogen as I had a hysterectomy 3 yrs ago. I am planning to see my dr. in a few weeks for my yearly, so I'll ask her then about the vision thing.

I have had alot of problems with my vision too. (Boy, after you've read all my recent posts you'd think I was a serious mess! ) I have problems with blurry and cloudy vision and also peripheral problems. I have been running into things that I swear was further away than it really was. I grew up having numerous migranes too. My eyesight is getting worse it seems but then again I have only been on the diet 2 months so I guess my eyes haven't had time to straighten out yet. (Plus I have been contaminated alot of times in the 2 months too.) Good luck to you!

My daughter had optical migranes with aura on gluten and was dx dyslexic just after her celiac dx in Nov 05.(words blurry on page hated reading, some ADHA symptoms).Post DX, and on 2 x 100mg fish oil twice a day and berocca (high dose multi vit) Oxford University Dyslexia research unit found she is no longer dyslexic, reading age up 2 years in 5 months, but she did have convergence insufficiency (google it) had eye exercises for 6 weeks, now cured, still has a contrast and depth perception problem and has BRIGHT YELLOW glasses for reading and when tired, she can then see the 'numbers in the coloured spots' on the charts, amazing. She is reading for fun now. They have done a lot of research into the link of diet (esp fish EFA oils and B vits) on vision and attention (being celiac vital vits and minerals are malabsorbed).

I have also found myself that what I though were 'tired eyes' looking at the computer etc and driving at night is 80% better gluten-free. I don't shut one eye anymore when reading at night!

I have had alot of problems with my vision too. (Boy, after you've read all my recent posts you'd think I was a serious mess! ) I have problems with blurry and cloudy vision and also peripheral problems. I have been running into things that I swear was further away than it really was. I grew up having numerous migranes too. My eyesight is getting worse it seems but then again I have only been on the diet 2 months so I guess my eyes haven't had time to straighten out yet. (Plus I have been contaminated alot of times in the 2 months too.) Good luck to you!

I have had problems with peripheral vison too. I can no longer use my glasses. I try to use my bifocals, but can't use them with my computer. My vision has been worse since this diet. Not sure of what is going on. good luck to you also. We've got a long road ahead of us. Tara

That's fascinating, DonnaD! I have ALWAYS shut one eye when reading--but I never connected it to gluten before. I did all sorts of eye exercises (for either strabismus or ambliyopia, depending on which doctor you believed) as a child, but they never worked. Come to think of it, I haven't had time to read much lately--I'll have to check it out now that I'm off gluten!

Funny you should mention this. Since have problems with gluten, my eyesight seems to worsen. Sometimes it just feels like there is something over one of my eyes that needs to be rubbed away (a slight blurring). I do wear glasses for reading, but can still read without them.... but there are days, since having this gluten problem, that I can't read unless I have plenty of light and my glasses on.

I have visual migraines (always preceding the actual headaches, which I can sometimes head off if I immediately lie down in a dark room) & also notice that my eyes are extremely sensitive to bright light. Also, I find that my eyes will sometimes feel very "sludgy" & slow to focus (sort of as they do when I first wake up) during the day for no apparent reason. Who knows, maybe that too is Celiac-related!

Curiouser & curiouser!

Leah

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The Queen of Hearts,
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day.
The Knave of Hearts,
He stole the tarts
And took them clean away.

Went to the eye doctor, nothing wrong I have 20/20 eye sight, but my eyes do the weirdest things. I don't know if I'm blacking out, but, a lot of the times my sight will nearly completely black, I can only see about around the middle of my sight, I have no idea what this is but when I'm not dealing with that, my eye sight is vivid as ever!